Thursday, December 15, 2011

After the faculty meeting today, Mike explained that we are officially moving into the self-study phase of our review process. To this end, he introduced our NEAS&C activity for the afternoon.We distributed the standards booklets, and introduced the 4 Themes 4 ED (see image on left). This was one of the activities from the Connecticut Association of Schools' (CAS) NEAS&C workshop we attended last week. Grouped according to standards committees, the faculty identified which theme(s) were association with which standards indicators. Then we passed around the mic to share out which indicators addressed the theme of personalization (there is an audio record of that).

We introduced the NCHSNEASC13 blog as a vehicle for continuing the conversation between meetings. We have a limited number of face-to-face meetings left this year, but we hope to use the blog to share anecdotes about our teaching and learning experiences with students to help our colleagues better understand what we do in our daily practice that addresses the NEAS&C standards. Mike posted an example in the last blog entry.

We aslo discussed plans to start collecting evidence after the winter break. It is important to start this process soon so that we have a full year's evidence when the visiting committee arrives.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

While I hate the “no wrong answer” bias that students bring into poetry class, I also know that I have no single right answer about what poetry is. Some students are drawn to traditional poetry, some are drawn to children’s poetry, some are inspired by performance poetry, some want to read epic poems, others just like to be subversive. Taking all these factors into account, and knowing that any study of poetry has to involve some combination of reading, writing and speaking, I’ve developed my Pick a Poetry Project project. In this unit, students have to find their own resources, organize their time, and have an outcome in mind. While they may not all end up on task every moment of the day when we’re working on this project, it has resulted in some very provocative work.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Just spent two days in a NEAS&C Steering Committee seminar at Connecticut Association of Schools in Cheshire. It was daunting. Most attendees' visit is scheduled for 2014, and at this point, we have a lot to do.My notes look more like a giant ToDo list. Mike and Bryan took notes also. One thing I would like to focus on next is merging our notes and putting together a timeline starting backwards. I think it will reduce some of the anxiety I currently feel about time.NCHS sent a team of 5: Anthony Bloss, Kris Goldhawk, Bryan Luizzi, Mike McAteer, and Michelle Luhtala